Racing the Clock: Running Across a Lifetime

An award-winning, much-loved biologist turns his gaze on himself, using his long-distance running to illuminate the changes to a human body over a lifetime

Part memoir, part scientific investigation, Racing the Clock is the book biologist and natural historian Bernd Heinrich has been waiting his entire life to write. A dedicated and accomplished marathon (and ultra-marathon) runner who won his first marathon at age thirty-nine, Heinrich looks deeply at running, aging, and the body, exploring the unresolved relationship between metabolism, diet, exercise, and age. 

Why do some bodies age differently than others? How much control do we have over that process and what effect, if any, does being active have? Bringing to bear research from his entire career and in the spirit of his classic Why We Run, Heinrich probes the questions of how we use energy and continue to adapt to our mutable surroundings and circumstances. Beyond that, he examines how our bodies change while we age but also how we can work with, if not overcome, many of these changes—and what all this tells us about evolution and the mechanisms of life, health, and happiness.

Racing the Clock offers fascinating and surprising conclusions, all while bringing the reader along on Heinrich’s compelling journey to what he says will be his final race—a fifty-kilometer race at age eighty. 

This unique blend of running memoir and scientific inquiry explores:

• The Biology of Aging: A biologist’s unique perspective on why we slow down, drawing fascinating parallels between human physiology and the life cycles of animals in the wild.
• Human Longevity: An investigation into the relationship between metabolism, exercise, and life span, questioning how much control we truly have over the aging process.
• Masters Running: The candid and inspiring story of a lifelong athlete who continues to compete in marathons and ultramarathons, culminating in a planned 50k race at age eighty.
• Endurance Running: A deep dive into what decades of long-distance running can teach us about our bodies, our limits, and the remarkable human capacity for adaptation.

BERND HEINRICH is an acclaimed scientist and the author of numerous books, including the best-selling Winter World, Mind of the Raven, Why We Run, The Homing Instinct, and One Wild Bird at a Time. Among Heinrich's many honors is the 2013 PEN New England Award in nonfiction for Life Everlasting. He resides in Maine.